LARRY WISH “Fable Table Cloth” C26 (Bumpy) & “Laire Wesh” C48 (Bumpy/Degelite)

By the end of the 202nd decade BCE*, weirder-than-thou prog-noise-rock champions Larry Wish served up two distinctly off-kilter albums, and they each work in tandem with one another to prove that the discipline of the tonally strange has it’s sub-genres -and their mastery- just like any other. 

On “Fable Table Cloth”, you can detect notes of King Crimson amidst the borderline of loosey-goosey-jam/improv and irreverent synth-pop. Far as I’ve heard, this is the most rawkin’ LW has gotten, and it’s almost anthem like, were it not…just…so…bizarre. These folx make Brainiac sound like New Order, I’m tellin’ ya!

On deck B was “Laire Wesh”, a decidedly familiar alter-ego, but more subdued, more quaaluded (yeah, it WAS possible, after all) and perhaps a li’l less rude that FTC. Less in-yo-face, but equally as noggin’ scratcherly/eyebrow-crinklin’. 

If you like the predictability of pop-structure, but that’s as far as you care to go with “the rules of song-writing”, Larry Wish (& His Guise) will keep you on your tonal toes the whole time while slippin’ in some catchy synth-work behind your ears, for sure.

https://bumpy.bandcamp.com/album/fable-table-cloth

https://bumpy.bandcamp.com/album/laire-wesh

and/or

https://degelite.bandcamp.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

*that’s end of 2019, folx

LARRY WISH & HIS GUYS"The Mouth is the Most Promising" (Bumpy)

As a prog fan, Larry Wish is the top shelf, stoner rock solution to hypnotic grooves, eery vocals & harmonies, unique prog drumming, and lots of subtle, mathy counterpoint sure to sooth the most savage/progarchive/ reader. Out on the newly started Minneapolis’ Bumpy Label, this was actually recorded in 2012. It shows the listener a dense world of imagination where coherency and genre blend into unconventional instrumentation, all while maintaining heavy rhythmic grooves that are not nearly as unfamiliar. Often reminiscent of the more cogent Beefheart albums (such as Bat Chain Puller) some of the songs are heartbreakingly complex in both macro- and-micro- arrangement.

The bass work of Sam Kramer and drumbeats of Katelyn Farstad (also of Itch Princess) are dense and unpredictable. The synth work by Aaron Baum goes exceptional with Wish’s powerful vocals and Tim Hudson’s clever guitar work. The album takes all sorts of turns including a drum solo by Wish and straight prog-deconstructions of abstract motifs into nearly free jazzesque proportions.

My favorite track was “Above a View of (Of View)” which was probably the catchiest and most memorable tune. “Riding His Bike on A Noun” is a sonic synthesizer suite with some interesting timbres and drum machinerhythms. “Christmas of a Town” is where it gets REAL proggy. I mean like strap yourself in for some dischord and dense resolution proggy. “HiFive” has a distinctly intelligent resolution and a tempo shifted riff of note. “Chaptermin” closes the album on an almost funky level of groove. As a whole, the album leaves an impression and the hypnotic riffs prevail.

Definitely for the listener who likes a challenge, get one of the limited tapes now over at the Bumpy Label!

https://bumpy.bandcamp.com/album/the-mouth-is-the-most-promising


--Josh Brown

FIELD HYMNS APRIL BATCH: Larry Wish, Lips & Ribs, Oxykitten

Yo everybody! Put down your snow shovels and strip off your snowsuits, spring is here! And so is a new spring batch of tapes from your favorite purveyors of ice meltage and plant growage, Field Hymns! I know, shut up, right? Yeah, shut up!

LARRY WISH “How More Can You Need?”

Not a typo, this title, “How More Can You Need?” Larry Wish is just drunk, probably, or maybe high on pollen (god, this pollen), hovering around his synthesizer and dreaming up wistful and off-kilter anthems for waking up in sunlight rather than darkness. Wishing upon warbling stars, we are transported to Larry’s magical realms where gnomes and fairies populate our conscious REM visions, stumbling through seasick synthwork on a path to discovery. Discovery of what? Discovery of fun, kids! Listening to Larry Wish is like mainlining Lucky Charms, and don’t you pretend you didn’t deck yourself out all in green this St. Paddy’s Day. Sprinkles, sparkles, spackles, crackles, wibbles, wobbles, wubbles. I think my cereal was dosed.

LIPS & RIBS “Battle in Nagoya”

Casio-wave boss fight music never sounded so refreshing and alive! “Battle in Nagoya” follows “Males in Harmony” (actually, all these artists pretty much follow themselves on this here Field Hymns label – is that cannibalism or incest, or neither?), a crash course in hyperspeed sugar-rush synthesizer/rock dynamics. Like chiptune’s bigger, beefier brother, Lips & Ribs prep you for digital dancefloors and digital mosh pits alike. Pretend you’ve been sucked into a computer like Jeff Bridges in “Tron” and try not to get yourself de-res’d as you play disc-throwing games, and laserbike racing games, and generally avoiding those flying 2D robots that look sort of like renderings of old Cylons. I mean, all you have to really do is take a stroll down electric blue lanes on this glorious digital spring day. See? Lips & Ribs still make us feel good about ourselves even though we’re comprised of computer code.

OXYKITTEN “Gleeking the Cube”

Speaking of getting out of the house and hitting the streets on this perfect day, Oxykitten has misspelled probably my favorite Christian Slater skateboarding movie, in the process adding way more saliva than necessary. But, like an unholy hybrid of Larry Wish and Lips & Ribs (it’s incestuous, that’s what it is), the ’Kitten barrels forward, heel-flipping and ollying and popping shuvits like nobody’s business. If someone had the audacity to attach wheels to a MiniKorg and record the sound of skateboarding upon it, it would be Oxykitten. Synth excursions abound, trees sprout through the cracks in the skatepark concrete, and we all receive a lovely cassette-shaped flower from Oxykitten, grown from the neck of a dead squirrel. Inhale the fragrance, kickstart your histamines!

 Field Hymns

--Ryan Masteller

LARRY WISH "Comb Hair"

The artist is named Larry Wish and he resides in Minneapolis. MN. The name of the cassette is Comb Hair. It is a challenging cassette. It can be dark and inaccessible at times like on the cassette finale song. It can be tender like in Suzie 2 when he sings "Chill out Susie".

All the mutherfucking synthesizers on this are straight up Ray Lynch or Jam Hammer era tone. Like, the whole cassette has a public access vibe going on. When you mix dark content with outdated technology it can make you sound like the Phantom of the Opera with a pair of orthopedic New Balances on. Larry Wish can sound menacing but in a hilarious way ... like listening to a funny nightmare.

What unifies all the songs is the main instrument is a keyboard that sounds straight out of Zelda II: the adventure of link, and Larry Wish puts a octave down on his vocals so he sounds like a shadowed out witness on an episode of History channel's Ganglands. The drums never really gets past slow and steady tortoise, but that isn't to say they aren't played well. There are some complex rolls going on. They enhance without stealing the spotlight from Wish himself. They accompany Wish's baritone behemoth Bowie impersonation well.

That baritone Bowie croon is a technique the electronic group THE KNIFE have perfected. Wish steals from it but gives it a midwestern hippy edge.

I think it is significant that I'd classify this as Folk Art and not Outsider Art ... so ... "Folk Music" not "Outsider Music". Hmm. Folk means something different when describing art as opposed to describing music.

What I'm trying to say is that Larry Wish is very talented. If he made the decision to play on expensive pianos, he could almost sound like the soundtrack to a Busby Berkeley choreography. But he makes the decision to use instruments that sound like they were purchased at a Salvation Army and distorts his own voice to give it an unnatural sound. Therefore, this isn't Outsider music, music created out of the boundaries of official culture, but ... "Folk Music", music created by the People using naive or rudimentary instruments. Wish is, in fact, an extremely talented pianist. At times the crayola crayon aesthetic he is going for feels like a means to sell himself short.

But hey, I love that band Friends Forever, too, so why am I hating? I'd go as far as making a Devo reference to Larry Wish's whole approach ... it's De-Evolved music!

The highlight of this cassette, however, HAS TO BE Larry Wish's "Hootie and the Blowfish" cover of "Hold my Hand". It is A MASTERPIECE. A perfect song. You should buy the cassette for that cover alone.

Larry Wish also covers Third Eye Blind's "Hows it going to be", which is slightly less successful. However, Larry Wish exposes how truly sad that song is. Unlike the squeaky clean who-ever-the-fuck-his-name-is-who-gives-a-shit lead singer of Third Eye Blind, Larry Wish sounds like he's about to burst into tears at any minute during the cover. Add to that the irony of how cheesy his keyboard sounds, and you have yourself an incredibly RAW and POWERFUL performance.
Personally I like when Wish's compositions don't wander. I like him when he's more pop than noise. But overall, Larry Wish is a very talented and entertaining artist to keep your eyes on.

Check it out!
larrywish.bandcamp.com

--Jack Turnbull